On behalf of everyone who can't find a job, or is working 80 hours a week, harder than an NBA athlete works, or has a unique skill but no opportunities, I'm with you. I'm never buying a ticket again. If it isn't free, I'm not going. I guess some guys are just going to have to go with 7 luxury vehicles instead of 8. Can't find to many people who understand this.

Some people will never come back, like baseball lost me a while back.

If the season is cancelled, 2 billion in salaries lost forever - fail
Total deal doesn't get better as they lose games, and how could it - fail
Good luck with those endorsements - fail
How do you accept less to play in inferior leagues and inferior markets? - fail
Some players will end their careers like this - fail
A prime year for an athlete lost and young players don't develop - fail
No one is crowned a champion - fail
Thousands of people connected with the NBA unemployed - fail
Some owners are actually happy not to play so they don't lose $10 million

It looks like all the players just agree with Billy Hunter & disregard everything else.. but there has to be a good amount of players who actually want to take the deal, and they just aren't speaking up.

I don't have a problem with unions and they serve a purpose, but when you are in one, often the group think thing happens and peer pressure is so strong that often anyone who says, "O.K. that is goood enough" is labelled as being selfish for having an opinion. i.e. You are not a good union member in the fight against ownership. So on principle, and often personal agendas, everyone gets led to pointless loss, some kicking and screaming in private.

It is very, very easy among your union "brothers" to say anything at all that is anti-ownership. It is often cheered. Things can get very hostile if you show any siding with an ownership position and ot will not be forgotten when the CBA battle is over. But often the only way to voice an opinon for what is right is an anonymous vote. But they didn't get one.

On behalf of everyone who can't find a job, or is working 80 hours a week, harder than an NBA athlete works, or has a unique skill but no opportunities, I'm with you. I'm never buying a ticket again. If it isn't free, I'm not going. I guess some guys are just going to have to go with 7 luxury vehicles instead of 8. Can't find to many people who understand this.

Some people will never come back, like baseball lost me a while back.

If the season is cancelled, 2 billion in salaries lost forever - fail
Total deal doesn't get better as they lose games, and how could it - fail
Good luck with those endorsements - fail
How do you accept less to play in inferior leagues and inferior markets? - fail
Some players will end their careers like this - fail
A prime year for an athlete lost and young players don't develop - fail
No one is crowned a champion - fail
Thousands of people connected with the NBA unemployed - fail
Some owners are actually happy not to play so they don't lose $10 million

Good luck to them!

Decertifying at this late stage has killed the season. Even if... IF... they win a billion dollars in a legal fight, what do they think the next deal will pay them after losing a season and a billiion dollars? Do they think it's acceptable for the owners to lose a billion dollars and they won't want to recover it? Do they understand you cannot lose money in business? Really this is beyond crazy...

It's like a bunch of children are involved and they are not looking at anything that can happen realistically..

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffb

It amazes me that they didn't have a player vote.

I would be livid and call for Hunter's head if I'm a member with no voice. It would sell out the union but what choice has he given the rank and file.

So the union is supposed to just allow itself to be bypassed? Unanimity amongst 30 reps is pretty convincing. This isn't the dramatic negation that Stern wants to make it out to be. It's something that could actually give the players some means of negotiating beyond just asking to be whacked in the shins with a five iron rather than a wedge. It doesn't guarantee the end of the season. It would have been nice if they had taken this stance much sooner. I'd criticize them for being late with this move. And I'd praise Stern for at least bringing everything to this point as early as this.

I would be livid and call for Hunter's head if I'm a member with no voice. It would sell out the union but what choice has he given the rank and file.

It'll be interesting to see who's going to have the balls to speak up about settling and playing ball considering what they will face among their peers for doing it.

And I guess with more thought, I should not be surprised that a union membership that has a statistic of more than 60% being bankrupt 5 years after they retire?......How can anyone think that most even know what is good for them? Do they even know what is going on or do most just sit there and nod?

It'll be interesting to see who's going to have the balls to speak up about settling and playing ball considering what they will face among their peers for doing it.

And I guess with more thought, I should not be surprised that a union membership that has a statistic of more than 60% being bankrupt 5 years after they retire?......How can anyone think that most even know what is good for them? Do they even know what is going on or do most just sit there and nod?

So the union is supposed to just allow itself to be bypassed? Unanimity amongst 30 reps is pretty convincing.

I guarantee you that it wasn't unanimous between all 30 reps.
If there is a rep per team (I actually don't think it works this way but still), who would really listen to a rep from the Raptor? Who would listen to any bottom feeding team.

Generally in all union negotiations the union does go to it's member base and say "Here's what they gave us, it's pretty okayish(well they'd say crap, but I hope a lot could read through the bull) we're going to vote on this"
Then we'll have some sort of resolution to the proposed CBA.
I was proof reading CBA's for my mother when I was 12, and did it for many years.
I've been on picket lines for shits and giggles (mostly more of "teaching the real world, etc").

The Union reps jobs is to get the best deal they can get, THEN present it to their membership for a vote. If it's No, more negotiating/striking/locking out/etc occurs, If it's a YES, back to work they go with a deal that 'typically' 60%+ the workers agreed on.

A lot of players have already come out and said they were never contacted and asked what their vote/opinion was. But the worst thing is, they werent even shown the proposal by their player rep, wtf?

You have guys like Kevin Martin, and Speights wondering what the fuck is going on because they're not even in the loop. Only the assholes at todays meeting got to decide 450 players destinys without asking 420 of them. What the fuck is that? Why is Keyon Doolings opinion worth more than 90% of the league?

It should be mandatory to have a player and owner vote. This team rep thing is bullshit and I'm sort of glad the players union is gone now, so hopefully when its put back together Billy cuntface Hunter will be gone and the whole system will be changed. Him and his greedy lawyers caused this whole thing because he wanted to keep his job thus keeping the proposal away from 90% of the players over the weekend, and the lawyers advising all the reps and players to do this so theyd get paid for months and months.

Fuck the players union. I'm 100% with the owners on this one. Apparently Keyon Dooling and Fisher were on a talk radio show after the conference and they were talking about what was next, and Keyon stumbled and bumbled and actually said I'm not sure what is going to happen now, and this is the guy who is Fishers 2nd in command. They're all a bunch of puppets to Hunter and the lawyers. Fucking idiots just cost themselves billions.

Rockets guard Kevin Martin(notes), by text on Monday morning, said he didn't care to represented that way: "I think it's fair for every player to have a vote, because we're all grown men and its time for the players to control their career decisions, and not one player per team. If it comes down to a final decision, you got to be fair." He added that other players he had talked to may or may not have voted for the deal the NBA had on the table, but "most feel like we're entitled to a vote!"

Union leaders don't exist just to cut deals; they must also keep their members informed at every step of the process. Given what Martin has said, his team rep and the NBPA's executive committee have failed to communicate the course of negotiations, the problems inherent in current discussions, and the reasons why the current proposal is unacceptable.

I guarantee you that it wasn't unanimous between all 30 reps.
If there is a rep per team (I actually don't think it works this way but still), who would really listen to a rep from the Raptor? Who would listen to any bottom feeding team.

Generally in all union negotiations the union does go to it's member base and say "Here's what they gave us, it's pretty okayish(well they'd say crap, but I hope a lot could read through the bull) we're going to vote on this"
Then we'll have some sort of resolution to the proposed CBA.
I was proof reading CBA's for my mother when I was 12, and did it for many years.
I've been on picket lines for shits and giggles (mostly more of "teaching the real world, etc").

The Union reps jobs is to get the best deal they can get, THEN present it to their membership for a vote. If it's No, more negotiating/striking/locking out/etc occurs, If it's a YES, back to work they go with a deal that 'typically' 60%+ the workers agreed on.

I don't disagree. In this case they simply never arrived at a deal and were not given an opportunity to do so. They had an option to accept the terms of an ultimatum which they could have presented as the best deal they could get, or to do what they did, and probably should have long ago, in giving up on a collective bargaining process that never showed much sign of being respected. In the end there was no deal to be put forward to a vote. What Stern was looking to do was bypass the union and have the full membership vote on an ultimatum offered by the owners. I suspect you did not run into a case where that was allowed to happen, although with unions weakening by the minute it very well might have.

A lot of players have already come out and said they were never contacted and asked what their vote/opinion was. But the worst thing is, they werent even shown the proposal by their player rep, wtf?

You have guys like Kevin Martin, and Speights wondering what the fuck is going on because they're not even in the loop. Only the assholes at todays meeting got to decide 450 players destinys without asking 420 of them. What the fuck is that? Why is Keyon Doolings opinion worth more than 90% of the league?

It should be mandatory to have a player and owner vote. This team rep thing is bullshit and I'm sort of glad the players union is gone now, so hopefully when its put back together Billy cuntface Hunter will be gone and the whole system will be changed. Him and his greedy lawyers caused this whole thing because he wanted to keep his job thus keeping the proposal away from 90% of the players over the weekend, and the lawyers advising all the reps and players to do this so theyd get paid for months and months.

Fuck the players union. I'm 100% with the owners on this one. Apparently Keyon Dooling and Fisher were on a talk radio show after the conference and they were talking about what was next, and Keyon stumbled and bumbled and actually said I'm not sure what is going to happen now, and this is the guy who is Fishers 2nd in command. They're all a bunch of puppets to Hunter and the lawyers. Fucking idiots just cost themselves billions.

First of all, there was no deal for anyone to vote on. A proposal is not a deal. The union is there as agreed upon by a majority of players, to get a deal which would then be presented to the full membership. In the past a good deal of players showed no interest in being in the loop or gaining any kind of understanding of the minutae of the process, and it appears that is still the case. Nobody was kept out of attending the talks as far as I know.

Second of all, Hunter was likely trying to protect his job by keeping decertification off the table. He put all his eggs in mediation, after being aware for a full two years that there was nothing to mediate, just bending over. There's also a good chance that going to the full membership with the owner's ultimatum, and presenting it as his deal, would cost him his job.

Finally, of course Dooling didn't know what was next. Nor should he. It's in the hands of the lawyers now, and even David Boise doesn't know just what is going to happen just yet.

In the end, if the players feel fucked over by their representatives, and those in charge of the union, there will be consequences. At this point there is probably a majority that feel somewhat disrespected by ownership. Maybe the union takes a big blow and continues to weaken until they reach a point where players are once again very much puppets of the owners, in which case the need for a strong union will be undeniable. Maybe the pendulum needs to swing back and forth like that. I personally think that would be a truth that sucks, and one that would have me lose interest altogether. If there can't be some form of a shared stewardship, then the interests of paying fans and all the related businesses just get fucked over regularly while the game declines in quality bit by bit.